Je Ne Sais Quoi
by Abby Ebon
Summary: Edward Elric, the Full Metal Alchemist, has made a life for himself on the other side of the Gate. There are monsters here, vampires and wereanimals, and people who don’t deserve to be called human. He calls himself Death, or Ted Forrester. ABVH/FMA.


**_"Je Ne Sais Quoi"_**

_Abby Ebon_

O.o.O.o.O.o.O

_Disclaimer_: I do not own _Anita Blake _or _Full Metal Alchemist._ It is very important for you to know this ahead of time so as to remind me of said fact afterward.

_Note_;…this is me being 'cute' about a title, for reasons applying to 'Edward', coming form a parallel world but living among us, and also relevant to the Anita Blake series as it stands out –in my mind - where Anita is talking to Jean Claude, and he says it (applying it to her), and she says it means "nothing/I don't know what" in French, while he disagrees and says something to the effect of it means a indescribable or indefinable 'something' which distinguishes the object in question from others which are superficially similar – this series, in other words, is forcing me to learn French. So, take this is as my _merci beaucoup_.

_***Facts**_*

*Edward, at 16, passed through the Gate and into the Anita Blake world. Time between these worlds passes differently.

*Edward is now 30. He's spent 14 years away from Al.

*Anita is 28 at the end of _Blood Noir_. She was 24 in _Guilty Pleasures_.

*Anita states in _The Harlequin_, that she has known Edward seven years. Making her 21/19 at their first meeting and him 22/23.

O.o.O.o.O.o.O

Equivalent Exchange

O.o.O.o.O.o.O

Edward looked down at his hand; he flexed it, watching carefully as surface skin seemed to stretch and tense against a play of unseen muscles, tendons and bone. An artistic illusion, a deception only skin deep, the truth of it rotted within him. A distant smile, not wholly pleasant, was fleeting upon his lips.

He knew the truth of it. Knew if he carved a knife into his arm, dug in deep and dragged the edge of the blade in search of life blood…he, at least, knew what he would find. Nothing, he would not feel a thing. Or perhaps he'd feel the phantom ache of nerves letting him know what he should feel, what the ache he could shrug away only hinted to, fleetingly. That he should be in agony, dying slowly and painfully in a pool of his own blood.

His hand lay in his lap, and only he felt the odd weight of it, the heaviness of the automail. The chill of it was at a comfortable room temperature and held no body heat. The gears and mechanics of it sometimes overheated, but this was but rarely. He brought the right hand to drag against his right leg, then his left, and marveled at the lack of reality.

He could see it, of course, and had a sense of the pressure. If he pushed down he'd feel the weight, and he'd always have an awareness of his balance and his limbs, a grace and purpose to his step that was not wholly natural born. Still, there was no feeling, no warmth, and no pain. It echoed in him, the emptiness, even as he marveled at it.

The phone rang, disturbing the silence. He reached and took it into his dead hand.

"Edward." He rasped in answer to unasked silence, his throat feeling sore and raw, as it always had since his coming into this world. Something else of his among uncountable something's lost in the transfer. Edward glanced around the empty room, seeking to distance himself from the memory, his mind drawing it up, and his instincts shying away.

"Edward, this is Anita." He breathed in her words, refreshingly crisp and honest. Here and now, in control - alive. He waited for her to continue, knowing that it was enough for her to know he was listening. It was more of his time then he would give most, he was a paid killer of the monsters that stalked this world, and his time was valuable. And if the monsters had once been human, what did it matter to Edward? This was not his world. He did not belong in it.

"I need you to listen to me, Edward, are you?" Anita demanded, and Edward breathed in the desert heat, it beat down on him without mercy as if sensing the wrongness of his living and breathing. He liked it, liked the heat better then the indifferent cold.

"You have my full attention." Edward agreed, because Anita never called him for anything less then a killing hunt. It was a siren call, the killing, it reminded him that he lived for all that he felt empty, the wrongness of his living on hovered over him like a smog of pollution.

"Thank you." Her relief pressed through the sound of her voice, a living tail-wagging thing. He hid the smile she would not suspect of him, and would like less to see.

"There is something here, Edward. Something that isn't supposed to be, I…I don't know what it is, Edward. None of them do, either. It…its killing Edward, human, 'shifter, and vampire doesn't seem to make a difference and, something else, it has some sort of ritual at every damn death site; I'd think it was psychotic delusion and design, but the circles they've got a power to them. It's not like anything I've ever seen, Edward." Something slipped in his empty chest, swimming up through the depths and rippling the surface of his long dormant emotions; fears unfounded choked at him. He feared what he heard, like some spooked child… Edward realized it, his hazel eyes sliding to the side where shadows lurked even in the daunting desert summer sun.

"Tell me something, Anita," Edward asked, past his strangling fear, focusing on her as she had asked, "do you believe in parallel worlds?" Her sullen silence was answer enough, and Edward found himself smiling grimly, eyes lowered to his false leg. She likely thought he was teasing her, taunting, when he could not be any more serious. She would learn all he could tell her, because Edward – for the first time having breathed the air of this world…was not all that sure of his survival.

It was critical that Anita believe him in this, if in nothing else after, so he had only to convince her of the truth. That alone was no easy task. Yet, for her, he'd do it, without payment, and with all the tools and weapons he possessed within reach. Few would believe such a thing of him. That he was capable of the humanity he often pretended he didn't feel; that he ignored it most convincingly.

Anita had claimed once that she thought herself his friend, in that she had unknowingly endeared herself to him. Not many would find the ease to look him in the eye, after having seen him in the midst of bloodlust, and claim him a hero as she had. She had seen him take a flamethrower to a vampire nest – human and dead alike, burning –and hadn't told him he was a monster, at a time when he'd really needed to hear he was human, albeit a twisted one. She had told him he was a hero.

"I'll take it from your silence, your answer is no?" Edward mused aloud, amused as he was, he kept it out of his voice. It would not help anything for Anita to think he was laughing at her.

"Edward. You aren't allowed to go crazy, do you hear me? If this is Donna feeding you New Age crap, well, you aren't going to go around babbling about it and getting yourself killed. I don't need cannon fodder; I need Death standing at my side." Anita spoke, her voice a stern demand, not to be denied. She, he realized, feared him – or feared for him – given his strange and unexpected question.

"I've not changed that much, Anita, not much at all. This has nothing to do with Donna." Edward answered shortly, not allowing his memories distract and drag him down into depression over which he had and had not failed in his life here – or…there. He had asked Donna to leave him, for he had felt the weight – the burden – of caring for others, who were helpless, was too much for him to survive failing …again.

She had agreed, because Ted Forrester had a dangerous occupation; but the children, Peter and Becca, were not so easily accepting of the idea to his leaving them altogether. Edward had always liked kids, had constantly been good with children, and because they saw that, they manipulated it. Not that Edward would ever admit to that out loud, Peter had figured it out well enough on his own. He'd made Edward promise not to die. It was a hard promise to keep.

"I worry about you, Edward." Anita stated, seeming to scold him. Edward's lips twitched, amused, but he only shook his head in the end.

"You should. I'll see you before sun down. Don't get killed." Edward warmed, letting something like playfulness tickle his words – just enough to worry her. Then clicking off the phone, before Anita could say anymore then what she had. Edward didn't like to say goodbye.

One day she might know him well enough to guess when he was getting a kick out of freaking her out…and when he was serious, until that day, he'd let her guess and keep guessing. It was enough to know he had his work cut out for him. With Anita, he always would, she kept him on his toes, and let him kill the worst sort of monsters without flinching from his side. Besides, who else could survive being Death's friend?

Edward smiled again, knowing he was out of his persona, but there was no one to see or read into it. There was no humor in it. It was bitter and frail. In all that time, perhaps Alphonse had forgotten him, grown up without him. Thought he was dead. Mourned him, buried him. Edward glanced down at himself, and he shook his head, five inches taller then Anita he might be, but it was too much to hope for that Alphonse would be shorter then him.

'_And if it isn't Alphonse, old boy_?' Edward mocked himself, his age, instead of his height, having become a sore spot recently upon having hit thirty. There was only so long someone could do the monster-killing job without the fear of mileage catching up. Then they…he, were only fair game, prey – meat - cannon fonder. Anita had a right to worry.

Edward did not think it was Al killing those people in St. Louis, oh no, never Al. Envy though, his other brother, risen from the grave as a homunculus… well who could say that Envy hadn't finally come out of hiding, having figured Edward for dead? Edward had tried looking for Envy, who he knew had gone through the Gate before Edward; yet Envy had seemed to die, or disappear.

For a long while, Edward had told himself that perhaps the Gate went to other worlds besides his and this one. Apparently, that was not the case at all and Envy…Edward had a good idea to what Envy was doing in St. Louis, creating a Philosopher's Stone, or maybe he just thought spilling enough blood would open the Gate backward. Edward had long ago decided that without spilling blood, the Gate was a one-way entrance into this world, a place very like Hell. Where the dead and undead walked, and people didn't blink to think of the monsters in the dark.

That wasn't to say alchemy didn't work for Edward anymore, it did, but Edward hated to use it. His sense of belonging in this world, the sense of wrongness about his living and breathing, well this world and its nature at large seemed prejudice against him and his alchemy. It might just be a mind-addled delusion, but Edward had taken it for a warning and had only used alchemy once in a great while.

Compared to Envy, a creature of alchemy, Edward was very out of practice. Envy had been formidable when Edward had been a reckless child with the gift of alchemy at his fingertips. Now, given so much time passing, Edward was unsure if he would even survive encountering Envy. He was good at killing, though. Just like Envy had been. Still, if he died. He'd make sure that Anita had all the information she needed to survive this. She'd think him crazy at the end of it, but she'd know.

Edward, perhaps unconsciously, had chosen a black sweater with silver lining and white gloves. His black pants and black boots mirrored his past military attire. Visible, yes, but less so then the flamboyant blood crimson coat he'd favored with the old State Alchemist uniform. He'd already called to schedule the next plane out to St. Louis, as he was a Federal Marshal, and had been called into St. Louis on 'business', his fly schedule took priority over someone else's. They might not like it, but in the long run they'd like being dead less.

O.o.O.o.O.o.O

This Crossover/Challenge was requested by _Faith_D_Anders_ (.?t=9427) and my take on it was encouraged promptly by _Cicadas_Cry_.


End file.
